BATANG KALI, Malaysia — Rescue workers scoured muddy
terrain for survivors and bodies on Saturday as the death toll from a landslide
at an unauthorized campsite in
Malaysia rose to 24, including seven children,
authorities said.
اضافة اعلان
Nine people were still missing after a predawn landslide hit
the site located at an organic farm near the town of Batang Kali just outside
the capital Kuala Lumpur on Friday.
Selangor state fire and rescue director Norazam Khamis said
the chances of finding survivors in the mud and debris a day after the disaster
were "slim".
Officials said there had been more than 90 people, most of
them asleep, at the campsite near a mountain casino resort when the landslide
struck.
Authorities said 61 people had been found safe or rescued.
Two of the victims were "believed to be a mother and
her child in a state of embrace buried under the earth", Norazam told
reporters on Friday.
The farm did not have a license to run a campsite and its
operators would be punished if they were found to have broken the law,
authorities said.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim visited the area late Friday
and said financial aid would be given to the families of those killed or
injured in the disaster.
The Selangor state chief minister, Amirudin Shari, tweeted
that all picnic and camping sites in the state would be closed for a week.
'Unprecedented'
Landslides are common in Malaysia after heavy rains, which
are regular at the end of the year.
However, no heavy rains were recorded in the area on the
night of the disaster.
Nor Shahidah Mohd Nazer, a geology expert from the National
University of Malaysia, described the landslide as "unprecedented"
under the circumstances — involving a gentler slope and not following typical
heavy rain.
She said the slope could have been partly affected by
monsoon rain from days or even weeks ago.
"Since the soil mass was initially wet and saturated,
it behaved as a semiliquid," she told AFP.
In March, four people were killed after a massive landslide
triggered by heavy rains buried their homes in a
Kuala Lumpur suburb.
In one of the deadliest such incidents, a huge mudslide in
1993 brought on by heavy rain caused a 12-story residential building outside
the capital to collapse, killing 48 people.
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